Acrion- Cascade
Page 6
"I just finished the first empowerment so this is a great time to take a break anyway." She said cheerily as she stood and dusted off her blue robes. Before I could even ask her about training she closed the distance and flicked me in the forehead. "First off, you really should have come to me the instant you hit level 5! I have all kinds of interesting things that could have helped. Secondly, where's your imp? Don't tell me he died and you haven't figured out how to summon another one."
Her words made me curse, and sent me rummaging in my bag. I pulled out the Binding shard and crushed it in my hand. A flash of light and a burst of air resulted in the imp standing in front of me looking slightly annoyed. Honestly I believed it would have taken longer to release me, so I can't be too cross... the imp swished his tail and nodded sagely at Kara who stared at the creature curiously. "Did he just nod at me?" she asked confused. "Imps aren't supposed to..." I cut her off. "Nah, he just has a tic or something, been doing that since I summoned him. Weird right? Anyway, you were saying about level 5 stuff?"
She blinked a couple times and then smiled, successfully distracted. Nailed it. "Yes, absolutely. So good to have an eager student for once! We will have you in the second tier in no time flat!" she clapped her hands and pointed at a spot in the grove that was occupied by an abnormally fluffy looking patch of golden grass. She took a minute or two to root around a chest that I hadn't noticed before. It looked like it was grown out of a single piece of wood, but that would be impossible with hinges and what-not. Right?
"Okay, for level 5 you have a choice between three spells and then at level 10 you will be able to pick out another spell and also pick out a specialty." She flicked me in the nose as I opened my mouth to ask her about specialties. "For level 5.. Let's see." She stacked three books on top of each other in front of me. Completely ignoring the fact that she'd just taken off an entire point of my health with her uncalled for, and frankly brutal, assault. She spread the books in the grass like a dealer at a casino would fan out cards and swept her hands over them, inviting me to make a choice. Excited all over again I carefully read each of the three descriptions before me.
Astral Tag
DOT - Summoner spell
Tag your target with your power, dealing damage over time and
also reducing their Strength by 13.5% (10% + (10[int]/10 rounded down)+(27[MainStat - spirit]x0.1))
After reading the first one and taking a moment to read the equation, I searched through my settings and minimized the option that showed the math. I knew that at the highest level I would need to take into account these numbers, but I already understood that my spirit wouldn't be as effective as if I was stacking intellect.
Mana Shield
Defensive - Mage spell
Create a barrier made out of pure mana that will protect you from direct damage until exhausted
Searing missile
Offensive - Summoner spell
Cast a shard of infernal magic at your target dealing strong fire damage and making subsequent Searing Missiles more effective
This was a more interesting decision than I had been expecting. They gave me options for filling a defensive, offensive, or supportive role. Thinking through the options carefully I ruled out the Mana Shield spell. First off I was currently in a group and would hopefully not have to worry about taking consistent amounts of damage, although that spell would have most likely been my top choice if I'd been running solo. Also it was a mage spell, and I felt like I was betraying my class to pick it so early on. That left the up-front, high damage spell, or the slow damage and weakening spell. In the end it was Gleer's display of damage when she killed that jerk at the mine yesterday that made me choose the Astral Tag spell. The group already had a lot of up-front hurt and while I did eventually want to be as effective as she'd been, I couldn't help but have the feeling that the debuff would be more useful to the group as a whole.
I tapped the Astral Tag book and it immediately disappeared.
Spell Alert!
New spell learned!
Astral Tag
Kara raised her eyebrows at my choice, but still nodded approvingly. She swept up the remaining two spells and they vanished into her inventory. "Well, now that we have all of that out of the way it will be level 10 the next time that I see you." Her fingers shot forward before I could even begin to bring up specialties again, but I jerked my head backwards, dodging the vicious flick by so small a margin that I felt the puff of air that it produced. Kara reached into her bag, not even acknowledging my cat-like reflexes, her eyes seeming strangely blank, and tossed me an odd little vial. "I see that you have a spirit focus, so that elixir will help let you tap into your main stat without the years of intense meditation that's usually involved."
Spirit Tap Elixir
Makes a direct connection to your spirit, allowing you to empower certain actions with your spirit.
I looked at the colorful bright red liquid in the vial that I held, and then turned my hand to look at the ring that adorned my thumb. "I was wondering what this 'boost' thing was," I said, popping the cork on the elixir and downing it in one gulp. Immediately I felt like a lightning bolt hit me in the chest.
The region at the base of my sternum burned with an intense heat that I'd never experienced before. The intense sensation built for a moment longer before it instantaneously changed into the same feeling that Kara had produced when she had poked me in the chest when we first me, only stronger. It was a connection to my spirit. How fascinating! "Now you will be able to infuse an action with the power of your spirit. A spell, a punch, hell even your words can be powered up by your main stat now." Kara said, her distant expression suddenly shifting and being replaced with an obvious look of pride. It made me happy to see, until I remembered she was just using me to get to tier 3, but the sentiment was still there I guess.
"The boost doesn't come cheaply though." She added with a smile. Instantly killing my buzz. "Empowering something will absolutely tank your stamina. It will leave you a huffing, puffing, sweaty mess on the ground if you aren't careful, so consider yourself warned." I nodded. "Last resort type deal. Got it." I said as I checked the clock and tried to predict how Hael's anxiety was doing. Seeing my look, Kara waved me off. "Yeah, yeah, big ol' adventurer has to go and beat some wolves over the head or some such. Get gone." She laughed. Relived that I didn't have to rudely ditch her again, I tripped my way through the tightly grown trees and, once I hit open field, jogged back to the gates.
Over all, my visit with Kara had probably only take ten or twenty minutes, but you would have thought it had been hours if you based it off of the state Hael was in. He was bouncing in place, adding to the already impressive indentations his heels had made in the soft dirt and spinning both his daggers in his hands. Unsheathed. And the others weren't even here yet! He spotted me and waved me in. I approached carefully, fully aware how deadly the rogue could be with those knives. "Just waiting on Will to hand in his spider fangs and Gleer to finish "getting ready" " he said this, tossing the daggers slightly higher in the air than usual and doing air quotes in the seconds between catching them again and resuming his nervous, and extremely dangerous (and very impressive), habit. I sighed, happy that the bulk of the anxious energy wasn't directed towards me anymore.
It took another ten minutes before both Will and Gleer had made it to the meeting point. Honestly it was still before seven a.m. so i didn't see it as that big of an issue, but Hael was very ready to move out. As we walked across the field to the road that we'd taken the previous day Hael outlined the plan.
"There was a limited call to arms in the town square this morning, only the first five people to respond were able to pick up the quest, and I was lucky enough to be nearby. so we're going to go straight through the forest on the way to the mine and see if we can do anything with this bad boy." He ended the statement by sending all of us a quest notification, effectively sharing it with the whole group.
Quest Alert!
New Quest S
hared
Call to Arms!
Four Flags - Bounty
Outlaws have taken refuge in the forest surrounding Four Flags.
These individuals all have the 'Murderer' mark and/or the 'traitor' mark.
For every murderer mark that you collect, you will be awarded 1 silver and an increase in reputation with the town of Four Flags.
For every Traitor mark that you collect, you will be awarded 20 Silver and an increase in reputation with the town of Four Flags.
Capture or kill as many of the marked players as possible.
Daaang, that was some serious money they were throwing around. Every silver in Acrion was equal to one US dollar, so for every traitor that you killed you would make twenty dollars! I wondered how early Hael had been nosing around the town square to get lucky enough to find this beauty of a quest. The guy needs a hobby. Oh wait...he was trapped in his hobby. I wondered what that did to someone's psyche...oh. I was also trapped in his hobby... whelp. I had better start documenting the effects then, shouldn't I?
My imp chuffed, and twitched his ears around in circles. Laughing at me! The little guy really had a knack for noticing when my attention was elsewhere. If nothing else, he was vigilant of my short comings, and what more could you ask for in a partner.
"Isn't this a little dangerous?" Will asked after a few minutes, just as we were approaching the admittedly foreboding tree line. I'd been expecting Gleer to be the one to be apprehensive about going after other players, but she seemed more motivated to go and take down the outlaws than even Hael was. Will looked at me, then Gleer, but when he didn't see any obvious support for his comment he let it go. It wasn't like I really wanted to go and hunt down other players, but it looked like everything in Acrion got easier if you had money. Not to mention that if Hael said it was a good idea, then I was likely going to go with it. The guy knew more about this game than I could ever hope to match, not to mention the 'reports' that he'd mentioned. He had additional data on the area. If that didn't give us a leg up on the enemy then I didn't know what did.
We entered the forest silently. Following Hael as he moved backed and forth through the already tightly packed trees. In Acrion, the density of the plant life was far beyond what could exist in the real world. There was no straight line that you could follow for more than a few yards at a time. On the other side of the spectrum, the forest floor was only comprised of a soft green grass that never exceeded about half a foot in height.
As we went, I wondered how well sound traveled in this labyrinth of living wood. It felt like if we were going to find anyone we would most likely not hear them coming. On top of that, our long ranged assets, namely myself and Gleer, would be at a disadvantage in the tight quarters. The trees themselves ranged from only a few inches in diameter all the way up to several feet, but even after a handful minutes of trying to keep track of which direction we were going, using the larger trees as landmarks, I was still completely lost and eventually just gave up and trusted Hael to get us through.
About ten minutes passed in relative silence. No one ever said we shouldn't talk, but the general sense of danger seemed to emphasize silence on its own. I was thinking that if it took about an hour to take the road around the forest that we currently were in then we should be a good portion of the way to the mine at this point. Just as I began to relax, assuming stupidly that the closer we got to the forest's edge the less chance of an enemy encounter there would be, I heard a loud thunk.
The sound of something heavy and made of metal striking a tree. Our group froze, and Hael sank to a crouch silently, creeping to the nearest tree and peering around the edge while holding a hand behind himself, stopping us from following. I kicked myself for not wondering earlier why there had been no wolf or mountain lion attacks on us. Players had been gossiping the whole time I was in Four Flags that the forest had the higher level predator mobs in it. Hael had even explained that forest was avoided in our leveling plan because of the high aggressive mob density and we had just walked through the thing without encountering a single one.
The sounds of muttering conversation drifted through the thick forest, but I couldn't pick out any specific words. Hael looked back at us and pointed at himself and then pointed around the tree he was currently using as cover, indicating that he was going to go and have a look. Gleer started to protest when Hael moved and simply disappeared, fading into the tree-toned environment. Stealth. That would be useful.
We sat, waiting in a state of constant tension. Every sound that I heard made me think an enemy was about to step around the nearest tree and kill me. When Hael finally did reappear it looked like Gleer nearly burst something attempting to restrain the scream that she obviously had been about to let loose. A bead of sweat trickled down my forehead into my eyebrow. Huh, I don't think I'd sweat before in Acrion, even the whole time we fought spiders and ran yesterday. Interesting.
Hael gave the three of us a thumbs up and drew his daggers. conveying that these were our guys and that we were going to attack any second. Hopefully his move also meant that they were within our ability to handle...
Anxiety wrapped itself around my guts, but at the same time excitement bloomed in my chest. I was ready to go. I looked at Vigil who met my gaze and nodded back, taking a deep breath and then exhaling slowly, warming up his deadly lungs maybe? Hael held up three fingers on a hand that was already holding a dagger. He leaned against the tree and with a huge grin on his face he began ticking down.
Three....two.......one.
Hael vanished and Will barreled around the tree with his own dagger in hand. Gleer and I both moved as a unit and when we made it into view of the the five players that had been taking a break not far away, the anxiety that had been plaguing me vanished in an instant. Something clicked and it just felt natural to target one of the five players and cast Astral Tag. At the same time Gleer sent an ice spell hurling into the growing confusion and froze a Warrior to a tree. Hael appeared briefly and unleashed a massive combo on the frozen player, killing him quickly before spinning behind a different tree and disappearing once again.
It didn't take long for the group of players to get their act together. Will was stuck dodging the strikes of two different players, one wielding a spear and the other swinging a axe around like it was a fly swatter, while Gleer and I were forced to take cover from an enemy archer. The fourth player was waving his hands around like crazy and glaring daggers at poor Will. Fortunately the enemy magic user didn't get the chance to share his gift with our druid.
Hael blurred into existence behind him and struck him in the temple with the hilt of one of his daggers. The strike stunned the player and interrupted the spell cast, causing the dangerous looking fire magic to poof harmlessly into thin air. Hael was easily able to kill the caster before the stun finished its duration. Dropping yet another grave marker to the ground as he sped off to re-stealth.
At this point there were about twenty arrows in the tree I was hiding behind. I ducked out to take a look at the archer when there was a lull in the constant bombardment. I was happy to see that he was kneeling on the ground, breathing heavily. Not to
mention that he was at half health! My Astral Tag taking its toll slowly, but surely. The recovering player was killed abruptly as a large ice shard hit him in the chest. Not only stunning him, but also blasting him back into the hard wood of a nearby oak. Or maybe it was a maple? I never could tell to be honest. Regardless of the species of tree the impact was enough to drop the guy's health to zero.
I watched as Hael, who'd already re-appeared, and Will fought the last two into a tight spot, boxing them into a knot of trees that had grown especially close together. The Axe-swinging one suddenly dropped to the ground, a bleed effect apparently finishing him off. And the spear-wielding one, with nowhere to run and no hope of surviving dropped his weapon in defeat. At least I thought that he was surrendering. Apparently I was just being naive.
He reached into his bag and suddenly held up a dimly glowing orb. "Shit." was all that I heard Hael say as the rogue sped towards the defenseless player. The guy smiled sadistically as he held the orb up to his lips, then hefted it and chucked it straight into the canopy. It zipped around, whining quietly, and eventually wove its way through the branches. Gone.
The player had vanished and been replaced with a grave marker before the orb had gotten more than ten feet away. Hael's weapons making sure of that, but the damage was done...although I wasn't sure what damage had been done...whatever it was, Hael didn't look happy about it. that was for sure. Ferry Orb. Vigil whispered in my mind as his fur stood on end and he barred his teeth at the surrounding forest.